Inset: Rashamba Claybrooks (Wisconsin Department of Corrections). Background: Apartment building in Milwaukee, Wis., that Claybrooks set on fire, killing a 71-year-old man (WDJT).
A 29-year-old Wisconsin woman will spend more than two decades behind bars after she torched her boyfriend’s apartment when he told her to move out, killing a 71-year-old man who lived two floors above them.
Rashamba Claybrooks pleaded guilty to felony murder and arson of a building and was sentenced to 24 years in prison for the death of Sam Nash, court records show.
Milwaukee police responded shortly before 2:30 p.m. April 8, 2025, for an assault call at an apartment building in the 3000 block of West Capitol Drive, a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime said. While cops were en route, the call changed to an active fire.
Firefighters put out the blaze on the western side of the building. The fire began in a first-floor apartment with smoke billowing up to apartments above.
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Cops later learned that Nash’s son found his father not breathing in a third-floor apartment, two floors directly above where the fire started. The son told officers he heard about the fire and went to check on his dad. At first, he missed him, but a second search revealed he was scrunched between a kitchen table and wall with a hood from a sweatshirt covering his face.
Paramedics pronounced Nash dead at the scene. He died of smoke inhalation.
Video from the fire showed smoke going into Nash’s window.
Investigators spoke with the domestic violence victim, who said he and Claybrooks were arguing while they were shopping at Walmart. After they got home, she threw something at him, and he told her that she had to move out of the apartment.
Claybrooks took some cardboard and loose paper and set fire to a closet with stacks of clothes in it. She left the apartment, and her boyfriend smelled smoke. He saw fire coming from the closet and ran to the hallway where he grabbed a fire extinguisher to douse the flames. But a little while later, he again smelled smoke. This time the fire in the closet was larger.
Fire investigators confirmed the blaze was intentionally set.
Nash’s family was devastated not only by his death but by the fact that firefighters initially failed to find his body. Two hours passed before Nash’s son discovered his dad.
“If my family had not entered that building, my brother would probably still be lying dead in that building,” the victim’s sister Debra Nash told local CBS affiliate WDJT the day after the fire.
She couldn’t believe it.
“How did you guys miss my brother?” she said. “How could that happen? That’s, like, awful.”
The post Woman’s boyfriend told her to move out of his apartment so she burned it down, killing a 71-year-old man who lived 2 floors above them first appeared on Law & Crime.
